Obaidullah Butt

Obaidullah Butt (5 October 1952-24 June 1998) was a commander of the Northern Alliance during the Afghan Civil War and a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War.

Biography
Obaidullah Butt was born on 5 October 1952 in Balkh, Afghanistan to a family of Sunni Uzbeks. Butt became a member of the anti-Westernization Mujahideen organization in 1975 upon its foundation following the Saur Revolution of 1973, and he moved to Pakistan with other enemies of Mohammed Daoud Khan. In 1978, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan following the assassination of Khan and the start of the Communist Afghanistan regime, Butt joined the Mujahideen in fighting the Soviet Army. With weapons sent by the United States and China, Butt trained a force of 600 militants in northern Afghanistan and quickly seized control of the countryside from the Soviets. In 1988, he accepted the surrender of the last 200 Soviet troops stationed in Balkh.

However, in the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan War, the Mujahideen splintered. The Taliban, predominantly made up of Pashtuns (the majority), was founded by Mohammed Omar with the goal of implementing Islamic law over the country. The Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Tajiks founded the Northern Alliance to prevent the oppression of their people, and Butt became a commander of the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud. In 1998, Obaidullah Butt was killed by a Taliban pressure-cooker bomb in Mazari Sharif, not far from Balkh, while reviewing troops.